THE THRIVING YEAR: 3 STEPS TO MAKING 2017 YOUR BEST YEAR YETGuest Post by Cameron Brown, Founder of The Thriving Collective

Breaking News: 2016 is almost over.

How did yours go?… Was it your best year yet, a year you’d rather forget, or somewhere in between?

Whatever it was for you, I love this time of year.

It’s a time where most people are winding down, but if you’re smart, it’s the perfect time to map out 2017 so that come January 1, you hit the ground running.

So what would make 2017 extraordinary for you?

What would your business look like?How would you be making a bigger positive impact?What would tick off your bucket list?

I remember 2 years ago, I made dramatic changes to the way I chose to live my life and run my company.My long-term relationship had come to an end and while my life was pretty good, I wasn’t truly LIVING.My business was doing ok, but I wasn’t really experiencing the growth that I had anticipated.When it came to experiencing life, I would say to myself, ‘I’ll do that when I reach ‘X’ level of success in my business.

Big mistake.

But as with any challenge that appears in your life, there’s an opportunity to learn and grow through it.

And boy did I take that opportunity and run with it.

The result?

The past two years have absolutely been the most phenomenal years of my life…

I’ve continued coaching people as I’ve traveled the world, built relationships with thousands of extraordinary people across the globe, expanded our company internationally, and run events in Manhattan, Santa Monica, Toronto, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide.

Then there’s the experiences!From skydiving to white water rafting, abseiling down waterfalls, mountain climbing, gliding, rock climbing in the blue mountains, played beach tennis on Santa Monica Beach, watched a major league baseball game in Toronto, recorded music on a grand piano in LA, saw a mentalist perform in NYC and so much more.

​I share this with you because right now, phenomenal opportunities, both personally and professionally, await in today’s modern age for those bold enough to go from living a good or even great life, and building a good or even great company, to living and building an extraordinary one.

So what were the changes that I made and how can you build them into your own business and life to ensure 2017 is by far your best year yet?

Well it comes down to 3 primary categories:

1. Performance

When it comes to performing at your best, a lot of people rely on motivation. While that’s ok in some situations, you’re constantly having to push yourself to get the job done. That internal ‘battle’ can become exhausting and when you rely on this as your primary source for performance, you’ll find that sabotage creeps in when you let your guard down, resulting in a roller coaster style ride of performance.

What you want instead is flow… When you’re in flow you’re doing your best work. You’re able to sustain high performance long-term. You’re constantly breaking through the limits that would normally hold you back and while there are still challenges that arise, you feel like you’re being pulled along vs constantly having to push yourself to overcome those challenges.

Two strategies that have had a long-term, sustainable impact on my own performance are first, getting crystal clear on my mission, along with the values and emotions that I am wanting to positively experience on a consistent basis.

The other is an ongoing curiosity about what’s possible and also what my own limits are (we all have them), so that I can breakthrough either by myself or by hiring someone to help me with it, allowing me to continue to experience increased levels of success, happiness and fulfilment.

2. Productivity

Most people have the best intentions of being highly productive. So why is it that many of us struggle with this? Follow up is a great example. Most people intend to follow up with those they are building relationships with, but in the workshops I run, I often ask ‘How many of you believe you’re outstanding at follow up?’ and barely a single hand ever goes up.

What’s happening here?

Well it’s not their intentions that are failing them, it’s that they’re relying on their memory, and while that will work when you only have a few things to accomplish, how often has that been the case for you lately?

What you need instead, is to install a system for being highly productive, so that you’re relying on that system rather than your memory. By having a system in place for holding yourself accountable, managing your calendar, installing new habits, following up and so on, you’re much more likely to reach your productivity goals and achieve extraordinary things in the year ahead.

3. People

At the end of the day, business and life is all about relationships. It would be a pretty lonely existence without them… no customers, no employees, no partners, no friends, no family.

Luckily, if you’ve been around for a while now, you’ll probably have a decent number of connections, especially with the increased use of social media. Think about how many connections you have right now… combine your email database, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other platform you use. What’s the number? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? A million?

The challenge here isn’t in the number of connections you have, but the depth of relationship and the influence you have with those connections. With depth comes trust, respect and loyalty, all qualities that turn people into prospects, prospects into customers, and customers into raving fans.

Now, you’re probably already pretty good at networking, most people can at least hold a conversation, but when you add today’s modern tools to the mix in a way that provides both leverage and freedom, and combine that with understanding how to positively influence people through these platforms, the opportunity for you to build personal, business and philanthropic opportunities from anywhere in the world, and in a much shorter time frame, makes right now a phenomenal time to be alive.

Bringing It All Together

A couple of years ago, I was already doing each of these 3 parts pretty well. I was performing at a high level, my productivity was above average and I had built some great business relationships.

Maybe you’re the same… You might have one area you’re doing really well in, or maybe you’ve got all 3 working well right now. What I’ve discovered though, is that it’s when you get all 3 working together in an extraordinary fashion, that magic happens… you become unstoppable.

So when it comes to 2017, you can continue living a ‘good’ or even ‘great’ life, or you can go for the extraordinary.

My strongest recommendation is the latter.

And that’s not coming to you from someone who’s just giving you theory on how to make 2017 your best year yet, but from someone who is actually living and breathing it.

Do this, and your life will never be the same.

If you’d like to make 2017 your best year yet (BY FAR), I’m hosting The Thriving Webinar on Thursday December 8 at 10am Sydney Time (or Dec 7 if you’re in North America)… It’s free to attend. Click here to register now.